Information Systems Join the Tupperware Party

Ahmed mohammed

bangor unversity

master degree in banking and finance

The opening case, "Information Systems Join the Tupperware Party", illustrates how much companies today rely on information systems for running their business, driving growth and profitability. Tupperware's unique business model using a dispersed, independent sales force requires a massive effort to gather, store, maintain, and disseminate data and information to its geographically separated users. Changing its corporate structure required it to change its inadequate information system. It had to find a way to reduce the workload on its sales force, improve communications, and provide the right information to the right users at the right time.

Rather than staying with its old information technology infrastructure, Tupperware wisely chose to implement a completely new system that could help it automate more business processes and integrate functions into a single secure environment that was scalable. Using the Oracle Collaboration Suite and Oracle Portal software provided avenues for continued expansion of collaborative efforts among its sales force and between the sales reps and management. Following the new system's implementation, Tupperware immediately began enhancing the system to provide even more online collaboration and communication tools.

This vignette is a great way to launch a discussion about the necessity of meeting users' immediate needs while still leaving open the possibility of adding new features to a system at a later time.

Section 2.1, "Components of a Business". Figure 2-1 may help students understand that every business, large and small, uses the same basic business processes. Referring back to this figure may help as you examine information needs for each functional area. You could have students select a business with which they are familiar and identify some of the business processes involved in each of the basic functional areas.

Another good classroom exercise is to use Figure 2-4 to discuss how a business is affected by developments in its environment. Using a familiar business like Wal-Mart you can have one group of students research and address its immediate external environmental forces like customers, stockholders, suppliers, regulations, and competitors. Another group can examine Wal-Mart's broader general environment (socioeconomic trends, political conditions, technological innovations, and global events).

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